


Couches and Heartbeats

by hufflepirate



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Beds, Couches, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Heartbeats, Hurt/Comfort, I can't decide if it's shippy or not so I've tagged both, M/M, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-05-31 15:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19429267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepirate/pseuds/hufflepirate
Summary: After the world doesn't end, after lunch at the Ritz, and after a nightingale sings in Berkeley Square, Aziraphale and Crowley find themselves at loose ends. Then again, if anything has earned them a little nap, it's stopping Armageddon. It's just that napping is harder than it sounds for an angel and a demon, especially once nightmares start coming into it.[Spoiler tag for the Episode 6 material that wasn't in the book.]





	1. Chapter 1

Aziraphale was mildly surprised when the Bentley pulled up outside the bookshop and actually parked, instead of just letting him out.

Crowley _had_ been focused forward through the windscreen more than usual on their way here from the Ritz, but now he turned, clearing his throat. "Erm - do you suppose I could come in for a bit? It's been a long day and I've got - ah - things to clean up at home that I'm not quite sure how I'm going to deal with."

"Did you _really_ kill Ligur with holy water?"

"A bit, yeah."

"In your own flat?"

"Unfortunately."

Aziraphale breathed out through his nose, nodding. "Oh, alright, come in, then."

He hadn't worked out quite how he ought to act, now. Certainly, he wasn't really part of Heaven anymore, which was considerably less reassuring than the idea that Crowley wasn't really part of Hell, but it still seemed - _something_ to let Crowley into the bookshop, and he wasn't sure if it was the right thing or not.

Crowley had been here before, of course, but not in the After. They'd only ever been to the Ritz, After, and letting Crowley in now felt dangerously like setting a precedent. Then again, he wanted to, and if they really were just their own side now-

He forced himself not to smile too widely as Crowley's entire body relaxed and the demon stepped out of the car less stiffly than he'd gotten into it and then walked in that usual sauntering way of his toward the door, everything loose and nothing nervous about him.

Just inside the front door, he closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of old books.

Crowley's hand wrapped around his shoulder, but the weight of it was odd, and he put together after a moment that it meant the demon hadn't been prepared to stop and had been startled. That was alright. Reassuring. Crowley was just catching himself. Nothing strange going on. He reached up and laid his hand on top of Crowley's. "Sorry, Dear. I'm just - it's good to be home."

"It's not _quite_ all the same," Crowley said, "There's, ah - proportionally more children's books in now, though I suppose it's only to be expected."

Aziraphale took another deep breath, trying not to worry too much about it. "It does smell the same, though. It's - good."

Crowley breathed deeply behind him, but with how close they were, Aziraphale suspected he'd mostly gotten the smell of his shampoo.

Suddenly feeling awkward, he stepped further in, pulling away from Crowley, and started grabbing books and looking at the spines, so that he'd look like he was occupied.

"D'you know, when Michael came in, he could smell you had been here?" he said, making conversation to keep his mind off Crowley smelling his hair and distract himself from the vague and passive despair he always felt when things _changed_ too much around his bookshop.

"Could he?" Crowley sounded surprised.

"Well, not you by name. He just said he could smell evil. But it's alright. I convinced him it was just some of the books." He blushed, realizing it sounded like he'd been lying. "I mean -" he added, "It _is_ possible that it _was_. It's just a bit more likely it was you he was noticing."

"Well, I'll have to keep coming back, then. So he doesn't notice the smell changing."

"I don't think he's coming back around." Aziraphale said awkwardly.

"Oh, well, I suppose not. Especially not now that he thinks you can breathe fire."

Aziraphale snorted uncharitably, in spite of his best intentions. "Did they really look frightened?"

"Terrified." Crowley sounded proud, and Aziraphale couldn't help feeling the same pride well up in his own chest.

"Well, I suppose it's alright. They weren't frightened at all about Armageddon, and they really should have been. Now it balances out."

Crowley gave him a very particular smile, and Aziraphale blushed. Yes, he _did_ know that that wasn't how things worked, and he didn't much need a _demon_ making faces like he was indulging a child's imagination.

He cleared his throat again, putting down the book he'd picked up and never quite actually gotten around to identifying. "Well, anyway, if you're going to stay around for a while, I ought to make a pot of tea."

Crowley groaned, stretching his arms backward over his head. "Yes, that would be lovely, Angel. It's hard work, digesting. Might as well make a nice little sit-down of it."

Aziraphale took his time in the tiny kitchenette behind his office, focusing on breathing and staying calm and not letting his mind spin around in circles. This was fine. It was all fine. It was normal. Crowley had come over before the end of the world to figure out what to do about the end of the world, and it was only natural that he come around after the world _didn't_ end to figure out what to do about it _not_ ending.

He was calm again by the time he walked into his little office to find Crowley sprawled across the couch on his back and looking exceedingly comfortable.

He handed a cup of tea to him, and the demon just propped it on his stomach, saucer and all, and kept his head tilted back. "Do you know what I've just thought about doing?" he asked reflectively.

"No, what?" Aziraphale asked, perching on his usual chair beside the desk.

"Sleeping," Crowley answered with fervor. "I haven't _slept_ in a good long while. And now that it's been the end of the world and all, I think all of us have earned it."

"Oh, well, we don't really _need_ -"

Crowley cut him off, "Oh, I know we don't. But it's so _nice_. And your couch is so much _nicer_ than mine."

"I do have a bed upstairs," Aziraphale answered, the words coming out before he could really think them through, "Just... seemed like if I was going to have a bedroom, there ought to be a bed in it. I don't use the upstairs much."

Crowley made a noise that wasn't words, but after everything that had happened this week, Aziraphale was almost ready to admit that they'd been friends for millennia, and he understood perfectly.

"Oh, I don't know. I never _have_ slept as much as you. It just always seemed a bit-" he waved his hand.

"If you say 'slothful,' I will have to remind you which one of us is the glutton."

Aziraphale squawked in offense. "You eat, too, you know!"

"Yes, I do," Crowley answered contentedly, wiggling further into the couch, which ought not have been possible. "And then I sleep. It's good for digestion."

"Is it?"

"Almost certainly."

"Well, then."

"Well, then indeed." Crowley waved his hand over their tea, but nothing seemed to change.

Aziraphale's eyebrows contracted.

"They're decaf now, Angel." Crowley said, wiggling his fingers. "Little demonic intrusion."

Aziraphale leaned experimentally backward, resting an elbow on the desk behind him and attempting to look casual about it. It was harder, somehow, in his own body than it had been in Crowley's. "How long are we meant to sleep?"

"Well, the usual idea is through the night."

"It isn't night yet."

Crowley shrugged. "It's getting close."

Aziraphale glanced down at his tea. "And it _is_ decaf. That's supposed to do - something."

"Ehh!"

Crowley sounded _far_ too delighted, and Aziraphale responded by drinking his tea far too quickly, face warming with a blush.

It was a relief hurrying up the stairs away from the demon, who was already mostly asleep, eyelids drooping behind his glasses. He hadn't even really reacted when Aziraphale took away his teacup and draped a blanket over him.

It still wasn't easy to keep his mind off the demon downstairs as he tried to remember what it was like falling asleep.

******

If Crowley had realized he was dreaming, it might have been nice to be having a nightmare that wasn't set in Hell, for once.

Instead, everything around him was bright, gleaming white, the light glinting off of every surface with enough glare to nearly give him a headache. For a moment, he was thankful for his sunglasses, but then he realized, with a moment of heart-stopping terror, what that meant.

"Oh, yes, Crowley," Gabriel said, "We know. Do you really think we're so stupid as that?"

Beelzebub appeared behind Gabriel with a gurgling laugh, her hand wrapped tightly around Aziraphale's upper arm as she dragged him beside her.

The flies around her head were biting at the skin of Aziraphale's face and neck and collarbone, but he couldn't wriggle away from them because of how tightly she was gripping his arm. He was soaked to the skin, wearing just his underclothes and socks, all thin, white, damp fabric that _had_ to be cold up here in the too-open spaces where Crowley could swear there was a breeze. He looked fragile. Vulnerable. Small.

Crowley hated it. His heart filled with rage and his throat with bile, and he had to focus just to breathe.

With a wave of his hand, Gabriel made the sunglasses drift off his face and crunch up into a little mangled ball of metal and dark glass.

"Now, we can't have you punished half-blind, can we? You're both in trouble, you know. You can't just go confusing everyone and getting in the way of Great Plans."

Crowley's mouth was dry. He thought he might vomit. He laughed anyway. "Can't I? I'm pretty sure the Almighty wanted Armageddon to happen. And isn't it my job to make sure She doesn't get what She wants?"

Beelzebub stepped closer to him, her fingernails digging farther into Aziraphale's arm as she dragged the angel forward with her. "Now now, Crowley, that's not going to work this time. We were halfway through your punishment downstairs before Michael realized what you two were up to. Everyone downstairs is very - agitated."

He shivered, but pretended he hadn't, blustering on. "Well, they shouldn't be! They should be _jealous_. Who else do you know who's tempted an angel to do things they _didn't want to do_."

He emphasized the last bit, his eyes darting over toward Aziraphale and then flicking back to Beelzebub's face.

Aziraphale made a soft, distressed noise, and Crowley's heart jolted in his chest again. No! If the angel let on that he was purposely trying to take the fall for both of them - if Gabriel and Beelzebub didn't buy that it was all his doing - couldn't Aziraphale just recognize that the one with experience at it ought to do the falling? But apparently he didn't, because his eyes were big and wide and terrified and _pleading_ , and Crowley had known him too long to think Aziraphale had any interest in his own salvation if it came at the expense of something worse for somebody else.

Gabriel's laugh was chilling. "You know," he said to Beelzebub, "I always thought your kind would be better at lying."

"Not one of our kind for much longer," she answered darkly. "Not _anything_ for much longer."

Crowley shivered again, in spite of himself, and tried to cover it with a particularly heated glare and a melodramatic half-snarl.

Gabriel sighed, apparently paying no mind to either. "Well, I suppose we ought to get on with things and let you take him back down, then. Do you mind doing the honors up here before you leave? We were just about to get to it."

He only needed to see half of Beelzebub's expression as she turned to look at Aziraphale to know what Gabriel meant. His blood ran cold, and for an instant he was frozen.

Then he leapt forward, trying to get between Beelzebub and Aziraphale, to pull her away from him, to shove him free, to do _something_ , but Beelzebub had already raised her fingers and she was already snapping them, and Crowley dove into a column of hellfire.

It felt like nothing. A pleasant warmth. Barely there.

Aziraphale was screaming like he'd never been in so much pain in his entire life, and then Crowley was too, desperately.

They were screaming for a long time.

Aziraphale started turning to ash at the extremities first, his fingers dissolving as he reached toward Crowley, followed by his thin, bare, delicate arms, which were gone before Crowley could reach out and grab them, crumbling into ash too grey to have come from something so like porcelain.

He was still screaming when he was only a torso. Only a head. Only a face. Little more than a mouth.

He was still screaming when Crowley woke up.

But no.

He wasn't.

Crowley was screaming by himself.

He stopped the sound, slapping a hand over his mouth as he took stock of his surroundings.

He was on the couch in the back room of Aziraphale's bookshop, which he'd spent enough time in to recognize right off. There was a soft throw draped over him, half of it knocked sideways onto the floor. It had soft tassels along the sides that weren't tangled up at all, which had to be a miracle, which probably meant Aziraphale was still here - didn't it? - but the angel was nowhere to be seen.

He took deep, gasping breaths. He didn't strictly _need_ them, not the way humans did, but he'd been incorporated for a long, long time, and they were instinctive and comforting until his head started spinning and buzzing from hyperventilation and he had to stop breathing entirely for a moment to readjust.

He shoved the throw all the way onto the floor and scrambled out of the plush sofa, arms waving a little extra because it felt good to let out a little of the panic. Once his head steadied, he started breathing again, and he couldn't make it anything but ragged. Not with his heart pounding and adrenaline still spiking through his veins.

Teleporting upstairs was ridiculous and unnecessary and a bad use of a demonic miracle, and he'd done it without even thinking about it, appearing at Aziraphale's bedside still panting and shaking.

Aziraphale sat up, his hair messy and his face vaguely confused. "Crowley?"

"You're alive."

"Has something happened? Is someone downstairs?" Aziraphale started trying to get up, but he was tangled in his blankets. "I thought something had woken me up, but then it stopped and I didn't realize -"

Crowley shook his head, reaching out to miracle the sheets back into order. They tucked Aziraphale aggressively back into bed, making him raise his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh! I say!"

"Nothing happened," Crowley said, running a hand over his face and realizing only as he did so that he'd lost his glasses at some point and it had probably been painfully obvious this whole time he was stood here that he had been very, very afraid. "It was just a dream."

"Oh," Aziraphale said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I was having a lovely one, but you must - why _do_ you sleep so much, if demons get nightmares?"

 _Everything's a nightmare_ , he bit back. It wasn't. His Bentley wasn't a nightmare. Queen wasn't a nightmare. Aziraphale wasn't a nightmare.

He'd stood too long. Aziraphale was sitting up again, looking worried. "Oh dear. Was it really terrible?"

"The worst," Crowley said, hoarsely, the words ringing hollow in his ears, "The worst I've ever had."

Something about the middle of the night sparked honesty even in him, and he remembered briefly why he usually tried to meet with Aziraphale during the day.

"Armageddon?" Aziraphale asked tentatively, looking sympathetic.

"Yes," he said after a moment. Maybe he wasn't so bad at lying after all.

Aziraphale started trying to get up again. "Well, since we're both up, why don't I make you a cup of cocoa? That's what they're always doing in books, when people have nightmares."

Crowley was better in control of himself, now, and he didn't move the sheets to keep Aziraphale in bed. Instead, he stepped up to him once he was standing and caught him by the wrist. "No, it's - it's alright. I just - I just needed to know you were alive."

Aziraphale reached a hand up tentatively to grab his upper arm. "Well, I am."

Crowley nodded, closing his eyes because the two of them were too close together and Aziraphale was going to see too much in his eyes if he kept them open. "I know. I can feel your pulse."

"Oh," Aziraphale said. "So do you want to just-" he trailed off, but Crowley was already nodding, so he figured that was alright, even though he couldn't see the angel's expression.

He expected to stand there until Aziraphale got tired of his wrist being held, but instead, the hand on his shoulder started guiding him gently around to the other side of the bed. His eyes snapped back open.

Aziraphale was blushing slightly in the moonlight. "Oh, don't look at me like that," he said, "I _had_ gotten comfortable, and it _was_ your idea to begin with."

Crowley nodded wordlessly, letting Aziraphale ease him down onto the bed.

The angel tried to walk back around to the other side without pulling out of Crowley's grasp, but it was a large mattress, and he didn't manage.

"Oh."

Crowley released Aziraphale's wrist reluctantly. "It's alright, I-"

"I'll hurry!" Aziraphale didn't quite run around the foot of the bed and back up to his side, but he did move faster than Crowley was used to from him. Neither of them were usually in much of a hurry. Came from having been around for 6000 years.

Aziraphale offered Crowley his wrist the moment he was back in bed, before he'd even adjusted the covers, and Crowley was just selfish enough to take it.

They rearranged the blankets with one hand each, coordinating awkwardly even after centuries of The Arrangement. He would almost have laughed at their mutual incompetence at it if he hadn't needed to focus on keeping a tight enough grip on Aziraphale's wrist to feel the blood pumping there.

Once everything was finally, awkwardly adjusted, they laid next to each other in silence, both staring at the ceiling as their hands laid between them, Crowley's fingers wrapped tightly around Aziraphale's wrist.

Eventually, he couldn't help breaking the silence. "I'm sorry I woke you up. I know you haven't got as much practice at sleeping as I have."

"That's alright. I'm -" Crowley turned to look at Aziraphale and found the angel's head moving suddenly, like he'd been looking over here a moment before and was trying not to get caught at it. "I'm sure if I'd dreamed of - you know - I'd have wanted to check on you, too." He cleared his throat, "And anyway, we both ought to have been up here to begin with. Sofas aren't made for sleeping. Not like beds."

"Oh, that's not really-"

"Things are created for a _purpose_ , you know." Aziraphale sounded suddenly desperate, but Crowley wasn't sure what for.

"Of course they are, Angel," he said, unable to put as much sarcasm into it as he'd wanted to. It just came out soft. Must be a side effect of the moonlight streaming in Aziraphale's window. He always did feel softer when the moonlight fell just right.

Aziraphale laughed. "You don't have to humor me."

Crowley squeezed Aziraphale's wrist just a little bit tighter, drawing the angel's attention so that he turned his head to meet his eyes again. "Well, you've been humoring me."

"I have not! It's -" whatever it was, Aziraphale blushed instead of saying it, turning his face back toward the ceiling. "Reassuring people is angelic. Or something."

"Or something," Crowley agreed.

They fell into silence again.

After a moment, Aziraphale whispered, "What is it you're meant to be counting when you're trying to sleep? I can never remember."

"Sheep," Crowley whispered back.

"Ah. Yes. Sheep."

Then it was quiet again, the silence broken only by the very very faint sound of Aziraphale reciting numbers under his breath.

Crowley had nearly fallen asleep again, lulled by the steady stream of numbers, when Aziraphale stopped counting and cleared his throat again.

"You know," he said, "I saw how fast you fell asleep before. You didn't even wait for me to make it all the way upstairs."

"Yeah?"

Aziraphale grunted, in that mildly petulant way he always did when he couldn't figure out quite what he wanted to do or say.

"Aziraphale?"

"Oh come here!" the angel blurted, tugging his wrist over toward his chest and reaching his other arm out to pull Crowley along with it. He was blushing heavily, but his hands moved like he meant them.

Crowley generally didn't try on purpose to emphasize how good he was at slithering even in his human form, but it was the easiest way to get where Aziraphale seemed to want him, which was draped halfway across the angel's chest.

He looked up at Aziraphale's face, and the angel furrowed his brow. "Oh, not like that. It's just you have to hold on so tightly to feel my pulse in my wrist, and it can't be easy to sleep like that, so I thought if you just put your ear - and then you don't have to-"

He was flustered. That was alright. Crowley, unexpectedly, found his heart doing all kinds of unsteady things he didn't much want it to do.

He turned his head, laying his ear against Aziraphale's chest and closing his eyes to focus on the heartbeat inside it.

"Yeah," he said, voice cracking a little bit, "Yeah, I can hear it."

"Well, good."

Aziraphale's voice sounded different this close to him. It was deeper, and Crowley could feel the vibrations of it against his cheek.

He snuggled down farther into the plush mattress, keeping his hips and legs properly and safely away from the angel's side.

Aziraphale hummed softly, the sound louder in his chest than in the air around them. "Comfortable?" he whispered.

"Very," Crowley answered, embarrassed to hear it come out nearly as a groan.

"Well, good. That's - good."

Aziraphale's breath didn't slow down into sleep, but his heartbeat was steady, and his body was warm, and everything felt warmer still when he wrapped one arm around Crowley's back. For a moment, Crowley regretted turning his head this way, where he couldn't see Aziraphale's face. But then the angel sighed deeply, his chest rising and falling under Crowley's cheek, and he decided maybe it was better not to know.

His own breathing began to slow toward sleep, in spite of the lump in his throat and the tangled-up mass of feelings in his chest. He really _had_ gotten good at sleeping, over these 6000 years. He'd just never quite managed to sleep _here_ before.

If he wasn't _quite_ asleep when Aziraphale started running his fingers gently through his hair, he certainly wasn't going to say anything about it.


	2. Chapter 2

Crowley hadn't expected to feel so awkward opening his front door for Aziraphale. It had seemed so logical to let the angel clean up the toxic, melted, holy-water mess he'd made of Ligur. It had felt so normal to watch Aziraphale climbing into the Bentley, and to drive along beside him, slowing down just a little bit from his usual breakneck pace to alleviate his best friend's nerves.

Now he was opening his _actual front door_ , and his fingers were shaking a little, and he could feel a burning in the back of his ears that was thoroughly unnecessary.

"It's, ah - it's just a little ways into the flat. I was in an inner room with the trap laid for them. Him. One of them. It's - you know how it is with plans, when you don't know all the details."

He turned to watch Aziraphale stepping over his threshold, the angel too busy blushing and looking at the floor (he hoped) to notice his own awkwardness.

He'd never had Aziraphale in his flat before. It wasn't a business. There wasn't any excuse they could make or half-truth they could tell to explain his presence here, like there was at the bookshop. It was nothing but his home, had never _been_ anything but his home, and _Aziraphale was in it_. He wasn't sure what to call the tangle of things he was feeling in his chest, but there was a strangeness to Aziraphale's smile that made Crowley suspect - or perhaps hope - that they were both feeling the same thing.

"Ah, right," the angel said, clearing his throat. "Just a little ways in. That makes - that makes sense. And where do you keep your cleaning supplies?"

"Oh, erm." Crowley wiggled his fingers. "Half the time I just - you know."

Aziraphale smiled softly and it was almost as good as getting a laugh out of him.

"Well, I don't think you can do that on holy water, and I don't think _I_ can do it on demon remains. We'll have to think of something."

Crowley scrambled to think. "Oh! I have paper towels. And - and some empty plant pots."

"Plants?"

"Plants."

"Yes, I - I suppose I ought to go look at the mess, and then we can look at pots. So we get one the right size. And the right number of paper towels. It _does_ seem - something to soak holy water up with paper towels. Like it ought to at least be _nice_ towels. But I suppose if it's got demon in it it's not really holy water anymore. Or it's not _just_ holy water. Oh, you know what I mean."

Crowley did. Aziraphale meant that nothing about this sounded like what they were meant to be doing, and even knowing that there _was_ no 'meant to be doing' anymore, at least for the two of them, didn't stop either of them from feeling like they needed to look over their shoulders and prepare to account for themselves.

But that was silly. It was silly! They were free! Or as free as they were reasonably going to get. He took a deep breath, plastered on a smile, and waved Aziraphale toward the door he'd trapped. "It's just over here."

Aziraphale seemed relieved to be moving, and even looked up from the floor for longer than a hasty glance. Crowley breathed a little easier.

"Oh dear," Aziraphale said once he'd reached the mess, "That is - quite something."

"I could buy a mop. One of the ones with a sponge. Or, wait-" he waved his hand, miracling a sponge mop into it and trying to remind himself that he was _free_ now.

Aziraphale actually laughed at that. "Oh! Yes. Quite."

"They don't really care what we do anymore anyway."

Aziraphale took the mop and poked tentatively at the puddle. "Did they care what you did in your flat before?"

Crowley shrugged. "I dunno. A bit. Never knew when they'd pop into the telly or start talking over the radio. Better to be prepared."

"But you keep plants?"

"Everyone needs a hobby, angel."

Aziraphale's voice got quieter. "I'm looking forward to seeing them. I didn't know you - gardened."

Crowley snorted. "It sounds so demonic when you say it like that. With the pause and all. You didn't know I gardened, but you were there when I - ahem - _gardened_."

"Well, I suppose you're making up for it now. In a way. Oh, I shouldn't have said that, it's-"

"It's fine," Crowley said, cutting him off. "We're something else, now, you and I. And Heaven and Hell are not us, anymore."

Aziraphale's ears turned faintly pink as he turned his eyes away again, focusing intently on mopping up the mess.

"I think this is about as much as the sponge is going to hold," he said, "Can you get one of those flowerpots you mentioned?"

Crowley cleared his throat. "Oh! Yeah. I'm on it."

It was easier to focus on the task at hand than it was to wrap his brain around freedom and nothingness, and by the time the mess was safely gone, he'd almost forgotten that it was meant to be strange having Aziraphale here.

The angel had worked up the faintest hint of a sweat, and when Crowley tentatively waved a hand at the sofa on their way back through the flat from disposing of the flowerpot, Aziraphale sank down onto it like he didn't have a second thought.

"Hmph," he said, surprised and apparently displeased.

"I told you your couch was nicer than mine."

"Well, yes, but this is - mm -"

"Yeah," Crowley agreed. "Midcentury modern was one of ours. Well. One of mine. So I felt obligated-"

"It hasn't got any arms."

"No."

"And barely any back."

"No."

"And the cushions are hard."

"Yes."

The angel sighed. "Then I suppose you did a good job with it, then. For your nefarious purposes."

Crowley laughed. "I did, at that."

Aziraphale looked over his shoulder, as if someone might be watching, and Crowley didn't know if it was a joke or an old habit.

Then he snapped his fingers and the sofa instantly deepened, softened, and grew exceedingly squashy armrests for leaning on, and Crowley decided it didn't matter.

"There. Much better."

Crowley nudged Aziraphale's shoulder with his own, and immediately wondered why he'd let himself do it "Yeah. It is."

Aziraphale blushed and nudged him back, and Crowley's heart very inconveniently skipped a beat.

He scooted over to lean on the armrest instead, tucking his feet up in front of him. Then he stretched his arms up over his head to emphasize how much he was _definitely moving to get more comfortable_ and not to put some space between them. "You know, it might actually be worth staying here if you keep miracling my furniture."

"As opposed to?"

"Sleeping on your sofa again." He wriggled a little, pressing himself deeper into the new couch to test it out. "Though I think yours might still be a _bit_ better."

"Well, this one had a hard start to its life. I think you'll have to forgive it."

"Your department, Angel."

"I suppose so."

Aziraphale sounded - something. Sad, maybe. It wouldn't do.

Crowley nudged him with his foot. "Hey. I can forgive too, you know. Freedom, and all."

Aziraphale smiled and Crowley's heart skipped two beats in a row, which was entirely uncalled for and possibly inconvenient. It was hard to know when he wasn't completely sure he actually needed a heartbeat.

"What _are_ you going to do now?"

Crowley almost answered with the same suggestion he'd made last night. Sleep now, worry later. Plan later. _Everything_ later. But then he didn't.

"I don't know," he admitted. It was the start of the truth. He hadn't told the truth - _just_ the truth - for a long time. It was strange how easily it came. It was strange how much of it there turned out to be. Aziraphale stayed truthful with him, all the way.

******

Aziraphale squinted through the darkness at Crowley's snoring form on the other end of the couch. He wasn't sure how it had gotten so dark without him noticing. He wasn't sure how he'd stayed here this long. He wasn't sure how he'd worked up the guts to come here to begin with.

This was all a terrible idea. They'd had to trick Heaven to stop them from killing him, but that didn't mean - it didn't mean - maybe if he was going to figure out what it _didn't_ mean, he'd have to figure out what it _did_ mean first. Bother.

He wasn't entirely sure how Crowley had managed to _accidentally_ fall asleep while they were still talking. They'd left longer and longer pauses as they realized they had no new answers, but it was still - it was - he breathed heavily out his nose.

He would usually wake Crowley up and remind him they didn't _need_ to sleep, and if he was falling asleep by accident, it might mean he'd been doing it too much. But they'd usually only be meeting if something was urgent, and whatever this was they were doing now, whatever they were doing here in the After, he couldn't convince himself it was immediate.

Crowley let out a particularly loud snore. It sounded labored. Painful. But he didn't _need_ to wake him, and sleeping _had_ been lovely last night, especially once they'd - no. Best not to think like that.

Aziraphale stood up slowly, trying not to jostle the sofa too much or nudge Crowley's feet too hard where they'd ended up leaning against his thigh. He ought to just go home. Find a blanket, drape it over Crowley, and make his escape from this demon apartment while he still could.

Instead, he stood still, watching Crowley breathing in the moonlight. The angle of his head and neck were awkward. It wasn't enough to get him a blanket. He needed to fix the problem.

Aziraphale had never thought of himself as strong, particularly, and especially not after Gabriel had made such a stink about his tummy and his lungs and his disinclination towards running. But Crowley was skinny, and his breathing sounded _awful_ , and his bedroom was probably that room at the end of the corridor, which wasn't far at all.

It _wasn't_. It was _perfectly near._ It was _fine_.

He leaned over and started picking Crowley up before he could think better of it. The demon weighed more than he'd expected but not, it turned out, more than he could carry. If he was quick about it.

He darted to the door he'd singled out before, only to find that the room within was as grey and black and stiff and stark as where they'd been before. Even without touching it, the bed looked uncomfortable, and as Crowley let out another strangled snore in his arms, he felt a wave of distress wash over him. This wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at _all_.

It was hard to think of miracling a new bed while he was still holding onto Crowley and focusing on not dropping him and not thinking about the fact that his arms were getting tired, but this bed was no good, and last night had been so lovely, and he'd teleported them both into his own bedroom before he could think it through.

He felt raw inside. Tapped. He was tapped. Too much miracling, and all of it for nothing.

His arms ached.

Maybe it wasn't for nothing.

He stepped over to the bed and laid Crowley down onto it. The demon smiled in his sleep and snuggled into the soft mattress with its soft sheets.

Maybe doing things for Crowley wasn't nothing, at all.

His heart ached a little bit, and he felt stretched. He'd done some physical labor today. Mopping. Carrying heavy flowerpots. Carrying Crowley. He'd done a lot of miracles, though he'd only meant to do them small, when he'd meant anything.

Then again, it didn't matter what he'd meant, did it? He felt tapped. He was tired. Exhausted.

He didn't need sleep. He could get by without it.

Crowley was sleeping anyway.

They hadn't actually answered all of their own questions yet.

He might as well keep talking to Crowley in the morning. And if he had to wait until morning anyway-

Sleep was only ever optional. Accidental, sometimes, maybe, but still optional. Unnecessary. Indulgent, and not in his most usual way.

It was - he was -

He sat down on the edge of the bed next to Crowley, not sure what he was trying to convince himself of.

He only noticed the absence of the snoring when the bed shifted a little bit behind him.

He turned just in time to see Crowley sitting up, his hair a mess.

"Aziraphale?"

"Yes?"

"Are we where I think we are?"

"Yours was just so -" he waved a hand.

"Demony?"

"Oh, I suppose, but that's not what I-"

"Yours is more humany." Crowley's eyes were covered by his shades, but his voice was soft and sleepy and Aziraphale doubted he looked alert behind the dark glass.

"Perhaps it _is_ what I meant."

Crowley swallowed visibly in the moonlight, leaving slightly too long a pause, before he said, too casually, "Well, come on, then, angel. Climb in. We've both agreed all your furniture is better than mine."

Aziraphale scooted over a little bit and twisted sideways, tentatively putting his feet up onto the bed beside Crowley. "Maybe we can - ah - fix that some day."

Crowley reached out suddenly, grabbing him in his arms and then slithering backward in that odd not-quite-human way he had, to pull them both over toward the middle of the bed. "Doesn't fix anything if you fall onto the floor."

They were close together. Like they'd been on the couch. Like they'd been last night. It had been - nice.

Crowley found a spot in the center of the bed he liked, but he didn't let go. Didn't let go. Didn't let go.

"I suppose you could just -" Aziraphale blurted, speaking before he could think anything through, "We could share."

"But then how do we know who's big spoon?"

Crowley asked the question lightly, like a flight of fancy, and Aziraphale knew he had an out. He could feign innocence. He could backtrack. Pretend he'd never spoken at all. Pretend his instincts - his impulses - weren't what they were.

He didn't.

"Your glasses. They'd dig in if you wore them as little spoon. Well, little spoon like last night."

"That wasn't spooning."

"It was cuddling. For - for comfort. Which is - something." There was a rationalization there somewhere. He couldn't find it. He was tired. He'd done a lot of physical labor today. Crowley hadn't let go of him.

"It was nice," Crowley whispered in his ear, and Aziraphale half expected a hiss at the end, but it didn't come, which meant Crowley wasn't trying to dig the knife in deeper and remind him what he'd done, or what he'd been.

He'd done a lot since then. He'd _been_ a lot, because he'd been things that didn't feel like a demon. A colleague. A nanny. A friend.

Aziraphale buried his face in Crowley's chest, because then he didn't have to look at anyone or anything or any part of the room they were in or anything at all but the cloth of Crowley's shirt, which he couldn't see properly from this close anyway. It was almost like not making a decision. Except for the part where it was almost like a decision in itself.

"I don't want to spoon," he said, his voice muffled against Crowley.

"So do you want-"

"This. Just this."

Crowley hummed. Assent. A buzz in his chest. Aziraphale felt something in his own chest expanding warmly and thought for a moment that he might cry. But that would be foolish. Ridiculous. Angels didn't cry. Not about - not over -

He _did_ cry, and it wasn't sad, and he didn't know how to tell Crowley that through his tears when the other man's arms tightened in surprise, but he did know how to squeeze his arms up against Crowley's chest and hold onto the front of his shirt so he'd know he didn't want to be let go of.

Crowley curled his whole body around Aziraphale as much as he could, and Aziraphale held tighter, and he had no idea why he was crying, but if Crowley was allowed to fall asleep by accident, he supposed he was allowed to cry.

Crowley held him until his sobs stopped, and if he tried to hide a kiss to the top of his head as a simple readjustment to a better spot on the pillow, that was nothing to call him out on, and Aziraphale couldn't remember, as he felt sleep reaching up to claim him, if he'd ever fallen asleep from crying before, but he wasn't sure it mattered.

They slept curled together, pressed closer than either of them had allowed themselves before, and they slept deeply, and they did not dream, and Crowley woke up with a mouthful of Aziraphale's curls, and Aziraphale woke up with the wrinkles of Crowley's shirt pressed into his cheek, and both of them knew they would do it again.

But that might be alright.

After all, this was the After.

They were free.

They were something new.

They were themselves.

And finally, _finally_ , it was a relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on the second chapter! It took me a long time to do the thing I told myself I had to do before I was allowed to write this bit. Hopefully it was worth the wait! I just really wanted to flip the tables on them.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh no, I've written a Chapter 1 and posted it before writing the Chapter 2. Which I never do. But I know what Chapter 2 will be, and getting to write it is a bribe for myself for getting some work done this next week. So hopefully it won't be too long!


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